2. An Overview of Skopos Theory

Skopos Theory was an extremely important translation concept in German school of functional translation theory, which first proposed by Hans Vermeer in the early 1980s. People who hold the view think that translation is an activity with a clear purpose and intention(Shirley Biagi,1992).

2.1 The Origin and Development of Skopos Theory

The development of Skopos Theory can be pided into the following stages(李洁,2008: 232-233). Previously, the concept of functionalism was first proposed in Translation Criticism: The Potentials and Limitations published in 1971 by Katharina Reiss. It formally opened the early stage of the study of Skopos Theory. This stage focuses on the early Skopos Theory study of linguistics. Reiss pides source text into four categories according to the function, namely informational text, expressional text, operational text and audio text. The translation of movie subtitles belongs to audio text. The creative new view of Reiss is a great step forward in the development of Skopos Theory.